Browsed by
Category: Books

A Hobo in Space: Starhiker by Jack Dann

A Hobo in Space: Starhiker by Jack Dann

Comments 2 comments
Starhiker by Jack Dann (Harper & Row, March 1977). Cover uncredited

It’s been a while since I’ve taken a look at a ’70s science fiction novel in this space, and this seems a good book to feature. It’s rather better than some of the books I’ve written about, though it has, as far as I can tell, never been reprinted. And it’s a very 1970s book.

Jack Dann was born in upstate New York some 80 years ago, and after spending some time in New York City moved back to Binghamton, close to his birthplace of Johnson City. He attended SUNY Binghamton, where SF writers Pamela Sargent and George Zebrowski were also students, and Joanna Russ was a Professor. (I don’t know if Dann had contact with Russ at that time.)

…

Read More Read More

Not Your Average Standard: Cahokia Jazz by Francis Spufford

Not Your Average Standard: Cahokia Jazz by Francis Spufford

Comments 5 comments
Cahokia Jazz by Francis Spufford (Faber & Faber, April 4, 2024)

This is a strange (in a good way) hybrid of alternate history (a 2023 Sidewise Award winner, in fact), syncretism, crime noir, and Christological sacrifice. Oh, and it has a little something to do with jazz, specifically that of the 1920s hot jazz era played in bars and brothels.

Let’s take these in order.  The alternate history is the invention of Cahokia, in reality a prehistoric Native American settlement around some 80 surviving earthworks today preserved as the Cahokia Mounds archeological park located directly across the Mississippi River from St. Louis Missouri, as a Prohibition-era multi-ethnic capital city in a U.S. state formed by an alliance of Native American tribes. Cahokia has its own language, and although Catholic-converted Native Americans comprise the majority, there are various ethnic communities (that’s the syncretism part), including a large African American presence, and, as you might expect, tension among them.

…

Read More Read More

Deadly Aliens: Adapting Richard Matheson’s third Kolchak script, Night Killers

Deadly Aliens: Adapting Richard Matheson’s third Kolchak script, Night Killers

Comments 1 comment


Kolchak the Night Stalker: Double Feature by Richard Matheson and
Chuck Miller (Moonstone, November 2017). Cover art by Mark Maddox

I’ve been asked over the years about the process I used to adapt the late Richard Matheson’s unproduced script for “The Night Killers” into a novella. I thought I’d go ahead today and give a few brief answers.

First, to address the changes I made in the story: It’s not that I think I’m more talented than Richard Matheson, because manifestly I am not. But what I had was very much a first draft script. If “The Night Killers” had gone into production, a lot of things would have been reworked, based on input from Matheson himself, the director, and certainly Darren McGavin. So that’s how I approached it. I regarded the script as a living document that I could have a hand in shaping.

…

Read More Read More

A Halloween Reading List

A Halloween Reading List

Comments 4 comments


Ace Double #42900: Tower of the Medusa by Lin Carter, and Kar Kaballa by
George H. Smith (Ace Books, November 1969). Cover art by Jeff Jones and John Schoenherr

I’m working on a Halloween entry for the Swords & Planet League, and on a couple of posts about Jack Vance. In the meantime, I thought I’d run a few covers of books I’ve got in the house here but haven’t actually read yet.

First up are three doubles featuring Lin Carter, two from Belmont and one from Ace. The Tower of Medusa is from Ace, with the backing book being Kar Kaballa by George H. Smith. Some reviews call it S&P but a quick scan suggests more Space Opera to me. After I read it, if it’s S&P, I’ll discuss it further. Cover artist is listed as Kelly Freas but I saw someone claim it has a signature reading “Jones” and that it was Jeffrey Jones. This does not look like a Jones to me and I can’t find any signature on my book.

…

Read More Read More

Spooky Sword & Sorcery for Halloween: Samhain Sorceries edited by D.M. Ritzlin

Spooky Sword & Sorcery for Halloween: Samhain Sorceries edited by D.M. Ritzlin

Comments 2 comments


Samhain Sorceries, edited by D.M. Ritzlin (DMR Books, September 24, 2022). Cover by Adam Burke

The mighty Dave Ritzlin, mastermind of DMR Books, continues to refresh his impressive backstock. Just in time for Halloween he’s re-released his popular collection of spooky Sword & Sorcery, Samhain Sorceries, with a brand new cover. Here’s Dave.

Samhain Sorceries was DMR Books’ best-received release of the past few years. With its unique concept and outstanding roster of authors, it’s not hard to see why. The fantastic new cover art was created by Adam Burke, and another of his paintings will adorn the follow-up volume, Walpurgis Witcheries, due out next spring.

Samhain Sorceries contains ten brand new tales, including a new story by Keith Taylor featuring Felimid mac Fal, hero of his classic Bard series. Order copies directly from the DMR website. And if you’re a fantasy author, note that submissions for the follow-up volume, Walpurgis Witcheries, are open until October 31st.

The Heroic Fantasy of C.L. Moore

The Heroic Fantasy of C.L. Moore

Comments 8 comments
Jirel of Joiry (Ace Books, November 1982). Cover by Stephen Hickman

While Edmond Hamilton introduced me to Space Opera, his wife, Leigh Brackett, and another woman writer, Catherine Lucille Moore (1911 – 1987), showed me the kind of emotional power these stories could wield. Moore was an influence on Brackett, and both of these writers wrote beautiful and poetic prose, which is something I always look for in the books I take home with me, although it’s not something I often find. (Robert E. Howard was another writer who could create that kind of prose, and both Moore and Brackett acknowledged him as an influence.)

Moore is known today for two genres that she did stellar work in. Neither of those is Sword and Planet, but one of them is Sword & Sorcery. Her Jirel of Joiry stories are exotic and luminescent. Jirel is one of the earliest flame-tressed female warriors in fantasy fiction. Depending on how far afield I eventually travel with this series, we may well come back to Jirel.

…

Read More Read More

From Traveller to Tantalizing Fiction: Torchship by Karl K. Gallagher

From Traveller to Tantalizing Fiction: Torchship by Karl K. Gallagher

Comments 0 Comment


Torchship by Karl K. Gallagher (Kelt Haven Press, December 9, 2015). Cover by Stephanie G. Folse

In the introduction to his first collection of short fiction, Unmitigated Acts (the title comes from Rudyard Kipling’s poem “The Female of the Species”), Karl Gallagher reflects on the history of the series: “I have a fondness for ‘rag tag crew on ramshackle ship’ stories” (p. 5). His first book, Torchship, published in 2015, is exactly that kind of story. Its setting is a nostalgic one: A starship, the Fives Full, navigated with paper charts and slide rules, like something from a Heinlein juvenile!

But there’s more to this than nostalgia. Gallagher’s interstellar future has a history, one in which artificial intelligence has come to be seen as an existential threat. How to deal with this threat is a central political issue that drives much of the plot. It’s more or less in the background in this first volume; in the sequels (Torchship Pilot and Torchship Captain), the entire plot emerges from it.

…

Read More Read More

Red Shoes Go Rogue! Read All About It in Rouge by Mona Awad

Red Shoes Go Rogue! Read All About It in Rouge by Mona Awad

Comments 2 comments


Rouge by Mona Awad (Simon & Schuster, August 1, 2024). Cover uncredited

Red footwear is a powerful metaphor in folklore and fantasy. Dorothy clicked her red slippers to go home. (Yeah, I know, the slippers were silver in the Baum book, and only became red as a better fit with new Technicolor filming, but stay with me here.)

Let’s go back to the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale The Red Shoes in which Karen is given a pair of red shoes as (it turns out) an inappropriate confirmation present; the shoes stay stuck to her feet and force her to dance incessantly to the point where the only remedy is to cut off her feet.  The story forms the basis of the British film, also called The Red Shoes, in which a ballerina dancing in red shoes commits suicide. The film inspired the Kate Bush song (you guessed it) The Red Shoes.

…

Read More Read More

Masters of Horror: The Essential Horror of Joe R. Lansdale

Masters of Horror: The Essential Horror of Joe R. Lansdale

Comments 1 comment
The Essential Horror of Joe R. Lansdale (Tachyon Publications, October 7, 2025). Cover artist uncredited

Lansdale is the well known, prolific author both of mysteries (Hap and Leonard series) and of famous horror stories, which made him the recipient of multiple Bram Stoker awards.

The present collection does not include new stories but assembles a bunch of his best horror tales, making the book a real treat for horror fan. His narrative output is so huge that even a confirmed horror lover like myself has found here a few tales I was not familiar with.

…

Read More Read More

The Sword & Planet of Edmond Hamilton, Part II

The Sword & Planet of Edmond Hamilton, Part II

Comments 2 comments


The Star Kings by Edmond Hamilton (Paperback Library, November 1970). Cover artist unknown

See Part I of The Sword & Planet of Edmond Hamilton here.

Edmond Hamilton’s Kaldar tales seem very much an homage to ERB’s Barsoom stories. An Earthman adventurer named Stuart Merrick is sent to Kaldar by a group of scientists. He finds himself a princess to love and becomes that world’s greatest warrior, and at the end of the first tale is drawn back toEearth by those same scientists. When asked what he found, he says, “My world.”

…

Read More Read More